Discussion

So it’s been a looooong time since the last update so here’s the gist of where Battle Flag currently stands.

I’ve been taking some time to assess my current strategy for getting this published. I don’t have an author website nor much of a social media presence, which is probably a big reason my two funding runs failed as badly as they did. But I am working on some plans to build a website and maybe do a Youtube channel with lore\history\technical videos connected to to series as a whole. Back when I first began building this world, in high school, the internet was in it’s infancy and nobody was using it the way they are now, so this is all kind of new ground for me. So I’m learning stuff here and there to help support that.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, I’m reformatting my manuscript for publication on Kindle Direct. I haven’t fully committed to KDP but the reformat is something I can do to prepare, for other avenues of publication, while also trying to build my online presence. Otherwise, I would have just had Inkshares delete my project off the website by now and thrown all of my trust into KDP.

Lastly, I’ve noticed the project has gained a few more followers, since the last update, and I would like to thank those folks for popping in and supporting me. I really appreciate it.

Projects and commitments at home have slowed my progress a bit but I hope that all of you fine people will follow the book wherever it land at.

So It’s been awhile since my last message, but I’m still alive! I hope all of my U.S. followers had a good Thanksgiving and everyone else had a good...errr...Thursday. Since my last update a few more followers have popped up and, while I am thankful to all of you new folks, I’ve finally decided to go through Amazon to publish Battle Flag: The Road To Hell. I still need to read up on all of the stuff that goes along with that, like formatting and what not, but until I’m ready to submit my manuscript there I’ll keep my project page up here and I will listen to any critiques or comments you have for the sample chapters that are here. I hope that once it’s published you’ll go grab a copy.

As far as my membership on Inkshares goes, I’m going to still lurk around and support projects I like and I am even going to keep my syndicate memberships going, but I don’t think I’ll be able to pull off publishing a project of my own here. So I’m going to do what I can, as time and money allows, to help out other folks.

Well it’s over. Thanks again to the folks that ordered, I guess I just couldn’t pull enough people together to make this thin happen at Inkshares. It sucks that it failed but it’s not the first time. So I’m moving on to see what agents are out there that might be interested in it. I did this before I came to Inkshares so I need find my old agent list so that I don’t double up my submissions on this next run. Not to mention that Battle Flag isn’t the only finished project I have ready to go. The Agoge is still hanging around Inkshares and if it shows some good traction here I’ll sell it here, so you might want to give it a look in. With all the work I’ve been doing on getting Battle Flag preorders I haven’t been able to give The Agoge much of a push.

Battle Flag likewise isn’t going to go away in an instant. I’m going to dial back the sample chapters and keep an eye on it while I look into my other options for publishing it. I’ve also got some new short stories coming down the pipeline that I’d like to get into one of the Sci-Fi mags out there.

Anyway, I’ll send out another message if something big happens with Battle Flag, like drawing in three hundred followers in a few months or something.

Well this is it. The campaign ends this coming Friday and it doesn’t look like we’re gonna make it.

I want to send out a special thanks to my sister Michelle and to Julianne Fleming for ordering multiple copies to help me out. Thanks also goes out to Kyle Cowan, Ryne Drogemuller, M. Robert Randolph, J. Graham Jones, and David Byrne for putting in orders. They constitute everyone who did order and I really appreciate the support.

Barring some monumental miracle, Battle Flag most definitely is not going to reach even the Quill goal, so it’s time to reassess my options. From the look of things I don’t think I have the social media presence to really make a campaign like this work. So what I am going to do, after the campaign officially ends, is cut back the sample chapters to just the Prologue and 1-3. Then I am going to take a look at making another run at traditional publishing or sending The Agoge out to agents and come back around to this later. Maybe I’ll do both and maximize my chances of getting an agent for at least one of my finished projects.

Thanks to everyone who has followed me through this and I hope that one day, if you see a copy of Battle Flag on the shelf at the bookstore, you’ll pick it up and check out the other half of the story.

I don’t know if I’ll do another update before the end of the campaign but we’ll see.

Well I finished going through my first three chapters with the help of the beta read critique offered by M. Robert Randolph, thank you sir, and not a lot has changed. I reworded a few things and adjusted some stuff but overall I was primarily fixing some spelling errors here and there. They might be a bit of an info dump but I’m just not sure how to pick apart all of those threads, which come together later, and re-implement them somewhere else so that everything’s in place before the climax. If you’re a fan of Techno-Thrillers, from Clancy or Coonts, that was really the style and structure I’m working towards.

We’re into the last two weeks of the campaign and still sitting at 11 orders. If you really have any interest in reading this thing now is the time to order and, even if you don’t plan on reading it, kick in for an E-Book and just let it sit on the website.

There is one thing I’d love to see Inkshares do and that is to create an option similar to the multiple purchase option but instead of multiple physical copies of the book you’re just kicking in extra money to help the project along. Maybe this could be for someone who wants only one physical copy of the book but wants to help out even more than the preorder price, or perhaps an author knows somebody who’s willing to help out monetarily but has no plans to read it.

Well we’re down to 22 days left in the campaign, I know one of my last updates I put in the wrong number because I’m an idiot. The project is still sitting at 11 orders and the jig is up at the end of this month so get those orders in if you want to see this thing get printed.

Things are looking pretty dire considering there’s less than a month to go and I haven’t even hit triple digit order numbers yet. If Battle Flag fails to fund I’m going to step back and reevaluate my plans for getting the book printed. I will undoubtedly clear the project page of all of it’s chapters and maybe just leave some little note about it. I might take the book and publish through Amazon or Createspace if it doesn’t fund here. I may also take The Agoge and shop it around to agents and then, if I’m successful with it, circle back around and use what clout I have to get Battle Flag printed.

Whatever happens, after 22 days, I’m going to be really busy either working within Inkshares getting the book finished up for publication or working outside of it to get the book setup somewhere else. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make this work at Inkshares and it’s time to stop spinning my wheels on this.

I just finished up the new edit of Chapter 1 on Thursday and was going to post it and the new version of the Prologue right away but M. Robert Randolph offered to do a beta and critique read on my first three chapters, so with his input I’m going to take another look before I put them up for reading.

The revision was originally motivated by a massive info dump I had in Chapter 1. It was one of those whimsy things that, even as I wrote it those many years ago, I knew it was too damn much. Part of it was just amateurish desire to copyright as many things as I possibly could but I also just got totally lost in the visuals of it all and my world took me for a ride.

What I didn’t remember was that I had already gone through and eliminated the dump before I posted those chapters to Inkshares in the first place, so not a lot changed in the revision. But now I’ve got another point of view to take advice from and I want to take another look.

Thanks again to Mr. Randolph for the critique and you should probably go check out his book The Dark Mountain. I didn’t back it to trade preorders, I backed it because it sounds kind of unusual and I really want to see how it goes.

Well I started in on the new edit this week and I have the prologue and half of chapter one done. As soon as I finish up chapter one I’ll replace both of those chapters on the read page.

The main motivation for this rewrite was to remove, replace, or rearrange the massive info dump i remembered putting in One, little did I realize I had already done that long ago. I’m glad I went into this, though, because I did find some grammatical and spelling errors I had missed through all of my other edits. Still I’m perfectly open to any changes you folks might have in mind, don’t be shy.

So I’ve been quiet for a bit, but with good reason, I crashed my bike two weeks ago and a broken rib is a good excuse to be lazy. We’re currently sitting out about a month and half left in the campaign so you know get your orders in soon.

In the very near future I am going to go through and do another big edit on The Road To Hell. I actually finished the manuscript and edited it several times three years, or more, ago. But, as I’ve been thinking of it recently, I thought of a few things I could do differently in the story or different ways I could say somethings so I figured I ought to take another pass at it. As I get chapters redone I’ll replace the ones that are on the project’s page. So if there’s any advice or anything you’d like to see changed drop some critiques on the chapters now. If the orders are rolling in fast at the end of the campaign I’ll get an extension on it and keep bringing up more of the redone chapters, until that halfway chapter that’s already up.